Monday, July 03, 2006

There are some people who question MY WIFE's intelligence. She did, after all, marry me. However, I'm not one of those people. I think she's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. After all, she married me.

(Jesus, is that paragraph a well-constructed joke or what? Even if your name isn't Jesus. And it sums up our relationship very well. Our relationship is a joke.)

(Just joking.)

(If I said that out loud, instead of writing it, MY WIFE would say, "You're choking? Drink some water." And then I would say, "Not choking. Joking. Jo-king." And then she might say, "Joe King? Pleased to meet you. I'm..." and so on. Yes, we are the reincarnation of George Burns and Gracie Allen.)

(MY WIFE is of the opinion that someday she's going to wind up in a nursing home and somebody will say something totally normal to her and she'll reply with one of the many non-sequitors that we often use in conversation with each other. At that point, they'll wrap her up in one of those white jackets with the sleeves that tie around the back and throw her into a padded cell.

Currently, we're going through a phase of quoting lines from Charlie & Lola, which - as I've mentioned before - is a wonderful cartoon from England now showing on The Disney Channel. In and of itself, quoting lines from a cartoon intended for very young children might not be completely normal, but it isn't rubber room material, either. However, if you go around saying "I remember when I used to do smelling..." or "It's not a ogre! It's not a ogre! It's a wolf!" you're bound to get strange looks no matter how well-intentioned you may be.)

Anyway, that's enough parenthetical usage for one day. My intention here was to show you an example of MY WIFE's intelligence, not make her a subject of ridicule. Of course, it's way too late for that now, so see you Wednesday. Have a great 4th!

No, no, no. Here is an actual true example of her smarts at work.

This has been one miserable softball season for me. All season long it has rained and rained. I've had more games rained out than there have been games I've actually played. Naturally, MY WIFE, being the one who has to listen to me since she's married to me and that's part of the contract, has grown tired of my continual bitching about the weather. She's nice about it - she doesn't get all up in my grill and tell me that I'm a whiny son of a bitch and please just shut up before you drive me to drink - but she surely must dread the combination of a scheduled game and a forecast of precipitation.

So, the other day I was once again bemoaning the fact that it was raining. And she said...

"Someone should invent a game that can ONLY be played when it rains. That way, people would go around saying, 'Gee, I sure hope it rains this weekend so we can play such-and-such.'"”

THAT is true genius.

However, I now hand the ball off to you, so to speak. MY WIFE has come up with the genius concept. I have conveyed the concept to a mass audience - if the 2 of you who read me on a regular basis can, indeed, constitute a mass. Your job over the holiday, should you choose to accept it, is to flesh out the concept.

What would the game be? What sort of equipment would be needed? How many to a side? Is it a team game, or is it one-on-one, or might it even be solitaire? What type of playing field, rules, scoring, physical requirements - or whatever else - would be needed? The only essential element is that the game cannot be played unless it rains. If it's not raining, the game is called off.

I will do some thinking on this. If you do some, leave your thoughts in the comments section. We'll compare notes after the holiday and I promise not to alert the gentlemen in the white coats, no matter how far out your ideas. With any luck we can actually invent a new sport which will be especially popular in Seattle. See you then.

5 comments:

I'm thinking something with buckets. Maybe each team has a bucket, or there's one at each end of the field. The buckets are the timers. When the bucket fills up with rain and starts overflowing then the inning/match/game is over. The harder the rain, the faster said inning/match/game will be, etc. The buckets would be equiped with some kind of alarm system that goes off when they fill up to the top, or to a certain level. That way, if it's raining more gently (or for beginners), you could set a lower level of rain to end the inning/match/game.That's all I have so far.

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My actual name is Jim Sullivan, but I'll answer to Jim, Jimmy, Sully, Suldog, Laroooooo, or Your Prescription Is Ready. Despite all evidence to the contrary found within these pages, I am a professional writer.